Care and Handling

Operators of mixed C&D facilities come from a variety of backgrounds, including the solid waste hauling, landfill, demolition, construction and excavating industries.

Many of these industry sectors provide exposure to cranes and to excavating machinery, with such machinery being deployed to dig dirt, knock down or dismantle buildings and also to move materials from point A to point B.

In most of these cases, such companies purchase hydraulic excavating machines because they find them well suited to performing several tasks (including, of course, digging) or because it is what they become accustomed to doing.

When these same companies begin to operate a mixed C&D sorting facility, it might be a good time to consider a slight deviation from this approach.

Makers of specialized material handling equipment—hydraulic machines that look similar to excavators but are designed for such applications as moving scrap metal, forested logs and port cargo—say that their machines can boost productivity in applications such as mixed C&D recycling.

Recently, Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine editor-in-chief Brian Taylor interviewed Constantino Lannes of Sennebogen Americas LLC, Stanley, N.C. Sennebogen designs and makes hydraulic material handlers designed for the recycling, forestry and port cargo industries.

Brian Taylor: How are material handlers designed to lift instead of dig, and how does this provide advantages in a recycling plant?

Constantino Lannes: Perhaps the first basic concept to understand is that an excavator is designed to work close to the base of the machine. You are digging up close, not 40, 50 or 60 feet away. But a material handler is designed to allow you to work further way. You have a much wider range to operate in to pick material and to sort material. So you don’t have to move the machine as often to operate within the plant. You have a much bigger vertical reach. You can pile much better and operate up to a greater height than in an excavator.

The next aspect is, generally, a material handler is a heavier duty cycle machine than an excavator. All the components are chosen while considering that longer reach. Thus, they can be made with heavier swing bearings and other heavier components designed from day one for lifting and operating at longer reaches.

Also, it is designed to operate in more contaminated areas. A material handler may [more often] be designed to have a better cooling system.

Another aspect is that generally on an excavator, the basic design is designed to look below ground where you’re digging. A material handler with an elevating cab provides you the ability to see farther in all directions, and thus makes for a safer environment.

The elevating cab puts the operator above all other equipment. He can see equipment moving, so a forklift, for instance, would not be hidden behind a pile of material.

On our machines, we offer a sliding door in the cab and catwalk access to the cab. Access to the cab through wide steps in the center of the machine, combined with a catwalk with rails surrounding it, means room for a trainer to train a maintenance person in a safe place.

BT: To what extent can material handler controls or design features make it suitable for sorting material on a tipping floor?

CL: I think the fact that you have a straight boom and better reach positions your stick on the floor better to sort material compared to a converted excavator. Longer reach also means you have more space to push something to the side or work with material spread over a given area. And, when considering wheels vs. a machine with tracks, a wheeled machine provides you the ability to move very easily and perform other tasks. Plus, tracks can tend to damage the ground at a concrete tipping floor, whether it is indoors or outdoors.

Material handlers with elevated cabs let operators work with vastly improved sight lines

BT: How can material handlers be used to feed material differently to an automated system, compared to a wheel loader or skid steer loader?

CL: The key here is that you don’t have to move the machine to feed an automated system. Your cycle time is much shorter than with the wheel loader or skid steer. If you want to move 100 tons of material into a sorting system, as the cycle time on the material handler is three-to-four times shorter than the wheel loader, you can move more material with smaller bites. It’s not that you’re bringing a larger amount of material, but you can efficiently bring smaller, even loads.

The other aspect with the material handler you can pick the material from any position. With a wheel loader or excavator you can only go from the bottom of the pile and get material—you’re always loading from the floor. Using a handler with reach, you can take selective bites of either larger or smaller material to feed your automated system.

BT: Provided a material handler comes with an elevated cab and extended reach, how can these features help production at a sorting/processing facility?

CL: As I had mentioned earlier, it helps with safety and with production. When you see better, you can produce more and you can produce more safely. An operator with a good view can also sort out something that doesn’t belong there, like a sealed tank.

BT: When a material handler is used, to what extent can that make driving onto a pile of material a thing of the past?

CL: You can avoid this because basically you have the reach to stay away from the pile and to reach material. Driving onto the pile occurs because you don’t have sufficient reach or height.

It also creates contamination and compresses the material, making it even harder to sort out and produce quality products at the end of the process. At the bottom of a pile that has been driven on will be fines that are not even worth introducing into an automated sorting system. Also, by staying on the ground you’re on even ground. Operating from on top of a pile, there is a chance the pile can give to one side and you can easily tip over. It’s not just the driver who is in danger, but people on the ground nearby.

BT: Are there other design features a mixed C&D plant operator should be considering when shopping for a material handler?

CL: Among the things our customers have asked for and that we provide are design features that offer safety of operation and safety of maintenance. So the way our engines are mounted on the side, all maintenance can be done from the ground.

This makes it a much, much safer way to perform these tasks compared to  a design that has things you need to reach that are mounted higher and on the back of the machine.

Operators at sorting facilities know that they tend to have a lot of contaminants in the air.

We have a reversing fan that helps keeps the radiator clean and running at a good operating temperature.

We also offer electric-driven machines. When you’re operating inside buildings, this offers not only a lower cost of operation but a lower cost of maintenance and a lower level of indoor air pollution. When you think of what’s coming with Tier 4 emissions, that’s very positive aspect of having a material handler with an electric motor.

Another important part of our electric machines is they don’t have to be fixed in place. These machines could be tracked or wheeled and still be electric. It can be mobile and still be electric.

It’s still plugged with a cable, but it is a cable roll that allows you to have some mobility—maybe not as much mobility as a diesel engine, but you’re not fixed to one spot.

With electric motors, there is no engine oil to change. A diesel engine needs maintenance every 250 operating hours, but an electric motor only every 2,000 hours. That’s an 8:1 ratio. That’s a great advantage that makes a big difference.

Generally, we try to emphasize that a specifically-designed machine has a better performance and thus lower operating costs than excavators that have a bucket attached.

Without question, in North America this is a new concept. But when we look to Europe where these machines are used by a lot of operators, the most productive operators use material handlers, not wheel loaders or skid steers anymore. I think it’s a matter of looking at this concept carefully. The first to adopt it will definitely have a competitive advantage, I believe.